Ice and Fire
by TarkNorthwind
Summary: Post-movie. After the defeat of the queen dragon, the vikings of Berk have settled down but little do they know that a great danger lurks just beyond the horizon. A great enemy of the Viking world has started to move and they will stop at nothing.
1. Chapter 1

Fires blazed, roaring over panicked shouts and the whistle of rocks flying over the twilit shadows running under burning houses, between the panicked shadows a small group stood standing up against the unseen enemy. Fires blazing fiercely a house's roof collapsed on itself sending furious flames into the streets but the group stood strong facing the broken dark gates. One stepped forward and turned to his followers, helmet lit by the angry red and orange of the fires and raising his axe into the air roaring with the fire. The sky was lit by the unrelenting fire as more projectiles where launched into the burning village, the stones clashed with the wood and stone of walls and houses, but one building still stood tall, in the centre of the village the Great Hall's mighty stone walls held out against the rocks and it's metal doors withstood the incessant flames threatening the village and standing atop it a great hammer stood. Carved out of the very stone of the black mountains of the north, the sign of their protector and patron, Thor, stood proudly atop the Hall.

Then the rain of stones stopped and the fires began to dim, the air grew cold as the very breath of the warriors that guarded the village turned into mist, then out of the broken gates a mist blew into the village covering it in its icy mantle. The silence took over the village nobody dared to move, every breath seemed to grow heavier. Then out of the mist, gray ghosts appeared, standing many men tall and steps that shook the very earth they stood upon giants of grey ice and metal seemed to form themselves out of the mist and standing between them was one bigger than the rest, crowned with a golden helmet and armed with two axes that could cut even the greatest trees in one fell sweep, Falghast, king of the Ice giants, looked on at the few humans who dared stand in his way.

With the force of a hundred men he swept his axe through the group sending them flying into the various houses, then stepping forward towards the great hall, he raised his axe and threw it. The axe flew straight on through the cold threads of mists that rose from the ground, embedding itself with metallic scrape into the great hammer. The axe and the hammer stood for a couple seconds before a hairline crack started to form on the hammer, slowly expanding outwards the crack began to grow wider and longer heading towards the ends of the hammer before finally the hammer finally fell, crumbling into pieces in front of the metal doors. Above it the axe remained embedded into the top of the great hall.

Then a roar of triumph was heard over the frozen night, like the sound of breaking ice it resounded throughout the village, as the giants rushed in after their king, destroying the last remains of the village. Falghast watched as his warriors destroyed and pillaged the human homes and stood as two of his warriors began to try and pull the metal gates of the great hall open. Falghast pushed them aside and breathed in.

He blew out and a white wind as cold as a winter blizzard covered the door, covering it in an ice cap to form over it, and then he punched it causing it to shatter. Stepping into the great hall, he looked around seeing the cowering figures of humans. He slowly turned back towards the door allowing his warriors to enter.

He kept going back towards the broken gates as two giants argued over a parchment that they held, they grew silent as the king got closer.

"Where is the next target?"

The smaller one of the two responded by showing him a map of the north with various locations circled out, one small island stood near the western edge of the map, near it was drawn a white mist with various dragons seeming to fly out of it.

"We will move on at daybreak, meanwhile begin the ceremony."

The two giants bowed respectfully at their king and called one of them took out a horn, a long sad wail sounded through the dark village reverberating throughout the now empty great hall. Then in the distance several blue fires lit up around the outskirts of the village, then as the sound of the horn ended the fires exploded upwards into twelve columns of blue light, the columns arched forward and concentrated into a point above the great hall, then slowly at first it began to turn and it kept going each time faster and faster until it became a uniform ice blue, as it turned the sides started to recede and all the flames concentrated above the great hall, forming a small sun of ice blue fire illuminating the dark village in a blue haze then it fell and exploded outwards. A wave of blue fire swept through village and expanded outwards, consuming everything in its way and leaving nothing more than a frozen wasteland in its wake.

***********

Astrid stood in the centre of a great long house illuminated by a large fire pit in the centre of it, the fire lit up the walls with twisting shadows; she remembered how in her childhood she had looked at these during the winter months imagining all sorts of monsters and battles that where fought by the constantly moving shadows. Looking at the shadows she got nearer to the fire pit. As she got nearer she noticed that there was someone standing near it.

"Come closer, you're surely cold."

She warily got closer to the fire and looked at the man who had talked, he was under a heavy cloak, his hands were covered in metal gauntlets and hanging from his waist was an impressive hammer covered in various runes. As she got nearer she noticed his sheer size, he was huge, but there was something familiar about him.

"Hello Astrid."

"How do you know my name?"

"I've seen you many times before, although you've grown since the last time I saw you."

"What?"

"You don't have a lot of time, remember this, a great danger is coming, beware of winter's breath and embrace the fire."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry but that is all I have time for."

"Wait!"

He turned away with whirl of his cloak and headed towards the shadows deep in the building then he turned once more. Astrid followed after him.

"I'll be seeing you around."

Then suddenly Astrid was pulled into the darkness as thunder sounded around her, then slowly light started to filter through her closed eyelids.

Incorporating herself she saw that she was in her bed and light was starting to come in through the window, as well as the flapping and morning calls of Berk's newest residents. She stood up and walked towards the window; outside she could see the town of Berk and dotted periodically all around it, various forms of dazzling colours roosting all around it. The one nearest to her slept in front of her window and it happened to be looking at itself in a metal bowl. She smiled down at the Deadly Nadder

"Of all the dragons I had to get the one who was self-conscious."

Sighing she closed the window getting ready for her day.

* * *

**I don't own HTTYD**

**I hope i can make this into a multichapter project, but no promises, you aren't forced to give me your opinion but i'd apreciate it, also i will ignore childish and/or uneeded remarks.  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Astrid walked down through the village streets followed closely behind by her Deadly Nadder, it had taken a habit of doing that ever since the first night after they had gotten back from the nest and even when she told it not to follow it would wait a couple minutes and followed her from a safe distance, normally jumping from rooftop to rooftop. She headed towards the old killing cage, now training grounds, as she neared it she heard the distinct sound of flapping wings and roaring. As she neared the edge of the pit she spotted Snotlout with his Nightmare, instructing a bunch of smaller kids, she saw them stare with slight terror and awe at the red dragon. Curiously enough, when the first dragon trainings had started Snotlout had become a natural at teaching both adults and children alike, mainly due to the fact that his methods seemed to get better results between the more stubborn adults or in the present case, showing children how to act around dragons. Although Hiccup did still get more or less a say on what he did, Snotlout was a firm believer of Gobber's method of teaching and so here he was with a group of ten children around twelve years of age and his dragon, Sparklout.

Snotlout stood in front of the group.

"All right, we've been through most of the training but now comes the most difficult part of this training. Now, what do you do when a dragon gets angry at you?"

The group shifted, throwing unsure looks and glances between themselves, but remained silent.

"Anybody? Nobody? Hmm... Well let's see how you do. Sparklout, feel up for a little game?"

The dragon grinned and spread its wings out causing the group of children to cower slightly.

"Great!"

He backed away from the centre of the arena.

"Let's get this started!"

Astrid turned her back as the screams began and columns of flame burst upwards from the cage.

Some time later Astrid found herself heading into the forest, her dragon still following her, looking back at the dragon, which promptly hid itself behind a pole, she sighed.

"Okay Bluebell, you can come along."

The Nadder chirped happily and ran up to Astrid, stopping in front and turning her head to get a better look at her Viking. Nodding slightly Astrid kept on going towards the forest. She walked on for several minutes passing various pines and rocks until she came across a two pines standing in a V. Taking a quick turn to the right she headed downwards through a large group of boulders. She stopped and looked around furtively before moving several pine branches out of the way revealing a clear path between the boulders. She entered and put the pine branches back as her dragon jumped over the boulders into a small well trod path heading downhill, flanked on both sides by grey stone walls.

As she continued down the path she saw another group of pine branches, putting them aside she entered a canyon, very similar to the one that she had first met Toothless and was "kidnapped", except that this one was much larger and divided into various smaller areas, one of the smaller canyons in particular caught her attention.

Arching from one end to the other a rickety wooden building stood, various metal pipes and chimneys poking out at several intervals, some of them spewing out smoke and hot gas, from a window on the ground she could see the light of a fire burning fiercely. As she got near it she heard a small ruffle above her, looking up she saw the sleeping form of Toothless, hanging down from an outcrop of rock near the building. He opened an eye to look at Astrid lazily before going back to sleep. Then the building shook with a loud explosion, followed by streams of smoke spewing out.

"HICCUP!!"

Toothless dropped down with a loud thump and rushed towards the smoking building, jumping in through the window, this was followed by a series of loud bangs and crashes. Opening the door a burst of black smoke made Astrid's eyes water, lowering her head she called out.

"Hiccup, where are you?"

"Up here!"

Looking up through the smoke, she saw Hiccup hanging upside down his feet tangled between some ropes and tubes.

"Wait right there, I'll get you down."

"Don't worry; I'm just hanging around."

"Now isn't the time for jokes."

"Wait a sec Astrid. There's a lever by the door."

"Yeah I found it."

"Pull it"

Several creaks sounded across the building before a loud flapping sound caused a bright light to shine through. As she got used to the light she noticed the smoke clearing up, looking up she saw Hiccup clearly, his metal foot caught in some rope while he slowly swung from side to side trying to free his foot. Suddenly the rope gave way and he fell in a heap on the floor into a pile of ropes and pipes.

"HICCUP!"

His hand poked out from the pile in a thumbs up.

"I'm fi...Ouch"

His metal prosthetic had fallen down on his head; rubbing his head he grabbed his prosthetic and leaning up against it he slowly stood himself up, then leaning against a beam he attached it to his knee clicking it into place.

Astrid looked at the stump, still after a year she still had a strange gut feeling when she looked at it without the prosthetic, which unlike Gobber's first leg had been heavily modified to the point it imitated a normal leg almost perfectly. Hiccup then sighed, drowsiness in his eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah...I'm alright, just that useless piece of metal over there won't work."

He pointed to a large metal cylinder pointing upwards; black soot covered everything around it, getting closer she noticed a bag filled with black powder.

"What is it?"

"Some weeks ago I found this strange powder near the quarry and I found that it burned very quickly, so I started experimenting with it."

"And it exploded."

"Yeah, that's basically it."

Astrid sighed, rubbing her eyebrows.

"Maybe we should move outside, until the smoke clears."

A couple of minutes later both of them sat near a small pond in the centre of the canyon, both their dragons napping behind them. Astrid looked down at the pond, arms crossed over her legs. Both of them sat there in silence, not sure how to continue. Then Astrid spoke.

"Don't you think you're working too much?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean between dragon training, making dragon gear, working at the forge and this?"

She said indicating the workshop.

"You just said everything I do."

"Exactly, you're taking on too much work and frankly you're starting to worry some of us."

"You shouldn't worry I got everything under control"

He began to stand up.

"Where do you think you are going?"

Hiccup glanced back at Astrid sheepishly, as she raised an eyebrow at him.

"I was...I was going to the forge."

"Oh, really..."

"Yeah, was I going to do anything else?"

"You see, that's exactly what I'm talking about; you're always going off somewhere, you always have something to do, it's like you don't have time for anything else or anybody for that matter."

"Astrid."

"Doesn't matter, forget about it."

"Astrid, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Astrid, please just tell me what's wrong."

"It's just that ever since the dragons live here and after all that's happened you kind of forgot about everybody else, even Gobber is slightly worried about all the work you're putting on your shoulders."

"But Astrid, everything's fine, it's just that I have to do this."

"You don't have to do it alone."

"I have to do this."

"Alright I'm tired of this."

Suddenly she rushed past him and grabbed him by the arm dragging him towards her dragon, while she whistled with the other, suddenly Bluebell perked up and looked at Astrid.

Bluebell brought down her head allowing Astrid to push Hiccup on and jump on. Bluebell burst upwards air whistling past. Astrid smiled as she went upwards, leaving a very confused Toothless behind, Hiccup steadied himself behind her slightly dazed at the sudden kidnapping.

"Let me guess, Payback."

"Now, if this were payback would I do this?"

Suddenly she made Bluebell speed up and rise upwards before in a loop-de-loop, Hiccup felt his stomach flop and he suddenly found himself falling downwards away from the dragon. Bluebell then banked sharply to the right and began to spiral downwards, towards the falling Viking; suddenly Hiccup was tugged out of the air. He heard laughter above him and saw Astrid grabbing him by the collar before pulling him up.

"Very funny." He said, his voice dripping in sarcasm.

"Aww, was the great dragon trainer scared."

"No...I was just surprised. You just caught me off guard, next time you won't surprise me with such a cheap trick."

"Really"

Astrid turned and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him towards her and kissing him deeply, he stood in shock for a moment before a strange warm feeling filled his entire body as they kissed, then Astrid broke away and turned back to riding with a slight flush on her face. Hiccup sat there slightly dazed and with a strange feeling of weightlessness and curiously enough the same strange feeling in his stomach when he fell from a dragon, only this felt good. Suddenly he noticed the air around him was blowing in the opposite direction.

"HICCUP"

After a quick rescue from a rather untimely death by law of gravity, Bluebell flew past the side of a mountain and started to slow down as Astrid looked around for any sign of what she was looking for, then in distance she saw a waterfall falling from a large opening on the side of the cliff. They neared it before the Nadder landed on the bank of a small stream.

"Where are we?"

"This is a small spot I found the other day."

"I really like all this but I promised Snotlout I'd help him with dragon..."

Astrid stood beside the stream taking off the headband and letting her hair down, it flowed freely down reflecting the light of the setting sun. She looked at Hiccup.

"So you want to do some fishing?"

"Huh...what?"

He shook himself out of the daze; he was having a lot of those today.

"See I have some fishing rods."

She took out two fishing rods from behind a tree.

"So you kidnapped me to go fishing?"

"No, it was an intervention."

"That was an Intervention, for what?"

"You work too much."

She held up a finger to his chest, and then she turned with a slight sway of the hips. Now if Hiccup was getting dazed simply by looking at Astrid we can all imagine what that did, yep that's right, total knock out, for a couple seconds mind you, he was a Viking after all.

A couple minutes later both of them sat by the stream concentrated on their respective fish lines, at least one of them was. Hiccup couldn't help but make passing glances at Astrid, first at her face then his gaze started moving slightly southward before he shook his head getting those thoughts out of his head. He was so busy with that that he didn't notice the tug on his line.

"Hiccup you got a catch."

"Huh... Oh!"

He began to pull on the fishing rod, trying to reel it in, suddenly it relaxed and he pulled harder, then there was a sudden lurch and he was pulled into the stream with a loud splash, soaking wet and having lost the fishing rod he pushed himself up. He heard some giggling and he looked up to see Astrid with her hand over her mouth resisting the urge to laugh.

"Oh so you find me getting wet funny?"

He splashed Astrid.

"Oh you're asking for it."

She lunged at Hiccup, wrestling him to the ground, they rolled across the stream before Astrid finally pinned Hiccup down between her arms; they stopped for a moment looking at each other gasping, their faces got closer. Astrid closed her eyes, as did Hiccup, their lips met.

A couple minutes later both of them lay in the grass waiting for some of their clothes to dry off, Hiccup looked at Astrid as she began to doze off and yawned as he began to fall asleep. The both lay asleep on the grass and after several unconscious movements, both lay beside each other in a rather compromising position.

Astrid was surrounded by darkness and then she heard a distant voice, at first it was faint but it became clearer, it sounded worried, she felt curious and tried to find where it came from, then something strange happened and the darkness lightened, as if she had just opened her eyes to a dark room, she threw her legs over her bed and fell to the floor, wait when did she get back home or why was the bed so high, but those doubts where put aside as she heard the voices again, focusing on them she followed them to a half open door, looking through the gap she saw two large shadows in front of a fire place, they sounded worried.

"Are the ships ready?"

"Yes, everybody is on board with everything we need, were just waiting for Jorg's family to arrive from the outskirts."

"Good, let's hope those monsters don't attack us before they arrive."

"Chief you should really be going on with the rest of the village."

"Not until I make sure nobody is left behind, we have to save those we have left."

Suddenly there was thunderous crash coming from outside and the two figures turned towards it.

"They're here, by Thor! They're here!"

"Chief, get your daughter and get out I'll try and buy you some time."

The larger one nodded and ran towards Astrid, looking up she saw a large bearded man in chainmail and full battle regalia.

"Gerty, since when are you awake?"

Then things became weirder as she responded with a voice not her own.

"I heard talking and I came to see who it was."

She said in a voice she hadn't even used since she was five years old, suddenly she was picked up by the large man.

"We have to go now."

Then the man ran to the door outside, as Astrid looked into the man's helmet she saw her distorted reflection, she wasn't in her body, as she looked she saw that she was in the body of a small girl with brown hair. As the man carried her outside she saw that they had left a large wooden longhouse into a dark empty street.

The man continued to run down the silent street, his armour and weapons clinking with every step, then Astrid heard a soft whistle that grew progressively louder, then she heard a loud crash followed by the longhouse bursting into flames, she screamed or rather the body she was occupying screamed in terror and shielded her eyes from the noise. The man turned a corner, getting away from the fire and going directly towards some docks, there several ships were out in the water and one was docked near them, as they got nearer to it they saw it was beginning to be cast off. Then behind them there was another crash and fragments of wood and stone went flying by, one striking the chief on the shoulder and sending them both hurtling to the ground, as Astrid looked back she saw a huge figure making its way through the flames, many times bigger than any man it raised a piece of the destroyed longhouse in its hand and sent it hurtling over the ship, barely missing it. The chief looked back at the giant and then at the ship, his face determined, then in one motion he picked his daughter back up and made a dash towards the ship as it got away from the harbour, stopping right in front of the water, it was too far to jump. Looking at his daughter, he made a small smile.

"Sorry, Gerty. Daddy has to stay."

Gerty began sniffle.

"Don't cry, Viking don't cry, they're brave, you be brave for daddy."

She nodded, then without warning he raised her with one hand and suddenly he threw her over to the ship, she hit the wooden deck between the scrambling activities of the raising sails. She stood up and looked over the side of the boat; standing in the harbour was the figure of her father, facing the giant surrounded by flames, he brandished his axe and then with a mighty war cry he ran forward towards the giant

"DAD!"

"Astrid"

She heard another voice this one familiar.

"ASTRID!"

She woke up with a start; Hiccup looking over her, a worried expression on his face.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, why?"

"You were screaming in your sleep."

"Just a bad dream."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, let's head back."

They woke Bluebell and soon they where flying over the mountains back to Berk, as they neared it, Hiccup saw something in the distance.

"Hey, there's a ship coming towards Berk."

**Disclaimers: I do not own HTTYD or any of its characters, i also do not own the dragon names like Sparklout or Bluebell, they belong to enchantable who has her own fanfic which are quite good**


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